Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Guitars from Club Muse: Roger Sweet

When I'm working on exhibits, I try to pick subjects that appeal to both our public and to our Education department. After all, with the increasing emphasis on visitor experience in museum settings, it would be foolhardy to ignore the programming side of our mission. In the case of a show like Seeing Cats and Dogs, which was on view
in Spring River Gallery earlier this year, I picked a theme to which many of
our visitors can relate, in this case our society’s love of pets. For other
shows, I consider the actual class schedule itself, and think about shows that
can speak directly to our own programming. In the case of our latest exhibit, Guitars from Club Muse: Roger Sweet, I was able to accomplish both in one fell swoop.

When it comes to musical instruments, the guitar is arguably
one of the most cherished in our culture today, accompanying genres as diverse
as folk music, stadium rock, and classical. Think about it, how many people have you seen playing guitar on the street corner or tackling open mic at the local coffee shop? Try to recall of all the songs you've heard that explicitly mention guitars in their lyrics: "Johnny B. Goode,""Jukebox Hero,""Ziggy Stardust," the list goes on. There's even an indie, post-apocalyptic, rockabilly movie called Six-String Samurai, with the main protagonist being a Buddy Holly type boasting formidable musical and martial-arts skills (seriously, I'm not making this up). And don't try to pretend that you've never heard of Guitar Hero.

The guitar has also been engaging the
visual arts for centuries. You'll find their ancestors in medieval religious paintings, for instance, played by angels serenading the Madonna and Child. You can also see them in seventeenth-century genre paintings, usually as music students pursue their lessons or lovers endeavor to woo their paramours. Most famously perhaps, they are regular players in the Cubist explorations of
Pablo Picasso. In short, the guitar is no stranger to the visual arts.

Trinity Site

For artist Roger Sweet, however, the guitar not only inspires
art, but becomes the art itself.
Based in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, Sweet has spent over three decades creating
sculptures out of guitars, resulting in a distinct body of work that uses this
instrument’s enduring popularity to explore different ideas.

Sweet typically begins his process by sealing the sound hole shut and then drilling a smaller hole into the
instrument capable of accommodating the spout of a can of expandable foam. He
next fills the guitar’s hollow cavity with foam, turning the instrument into a
solid object that can more readily be cut apart and shaped into new forms. Using
paint, found objects, and other materials, Sweet then transforms his guitars
into dancing figures, furniture, and other compositions.

Nude Descending a Staircase

The topics that Sweet addresses are as
diverse as the guitar’s musical repertoire. Many of his pieces concern the
history of art itself, placing his work in a dialogue with the vast legacy of
human creative expression. Among the most direct examples is Nude Descending a Staircase, which pays
homage to Marcel Duchamp’s seminal 1912 painting of the same name. Rather than
show the nude in a static pose, Duchamp strove to depict motion itself by
painting several consecutive moments flowing together in a continuous movement.
Similarly, Sweet’s Nude Descending a
Staircase suggests motion through its very structure, with its reassembled
parts flowing downward in a series of angles and lines. The sculpture both commemorates
its artistic precedent and creates a new one, with each part acknowledging the
guitar’s original form and its subsequent transformation.

It's All Rock and Roll

Other works explore more overtly political or historical
issues and events. Among the most prevalent social concerns in Sweet’s oeuvre
are the anxieties surrounding the Cold War, which are explored in It’s All Rock and Roll. Initially, this
chair appears to celebrate mid-twentieth-century aesthetics, with its title and
incorporation of the guitar honoring the energetic musical genre associated
with this era. The work also features period linoleum stamped with swirling
patterns suggestive of abstracted galaxies and nebulae, evoking the futuristic
optimism frequently associated with midcentury modern design. Yet beneath the
seat cushion on this work, Sweet has surreptitiously included the front page of
a newspaper found in the same house where the linoleum was actually recovered.
Dating from 1945, the paper features an article describing the dropping of the
atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
Sweet’s work cleverly encapsulates Cold War contradictions, visually conveying
the dual potential for total annihilation and technological advancement
represented by the development of atomic power.

Compelling as these works may be individually, however, together
Sweet’s guitars also form a narrative chronicling this artist’s life journey.
Each piece addresses a different historical, artistic, or personal subject,
forming chapters within a larger narrative that chronicles Sweet’s ongoing
efforts to reconcile humanity’s complex and often violent history with its
positive creativity.

It is only appropriate, then, that
the culminating chapter in this visual narrative is The Three Muses, completed in 2014. Sculpturally, it is the most
complex work, with its three dancing figures, but more than a display of
technical prowess, it is a paean to creativity. In Greek and Roman mythology,
the Muses were goddesses representing literature, science, and the arts, and
throughout the history of Western art, these female figures recur as visual
metaphors for inspiration. Simultaneously referencing visual art, music, and
dance, The Three Muses embodies the
arts as the crux of cultural vitality, and celebrates what all of these
sculptures represent: the guitar as a vehicle for creativity.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Comments

Post a Comment

Questions? Comments? Speak your mind here.

Popular Posts

Last January we kicked off the new year with a photography show that examinedthe New Mexico cultural landscape, New Mexico Vernacular: Architectural Portraits by Robert Christensen. This year, we're also with photography: Power: New Works by David Emitt Adams. Both photographers explore overlooked but critical elements of our cultural landscape, but their focus and approach is decidedly different.Whereas Christensenhighlights the gas stations, grocery stores, and other seemingly mundane structures that define everyday life,Arizona-based photographer David Emitt Adamsexplores the fuel that powers that life:oil.

Today we'll going to begin looking at a family of etchers that will take us through the end of the year: the Morans. Originally from England, the Morans came to the United States during the mid-nineteenth century, when industrialization essentially put an end to their livelihood as hand loomers. Several of the siblings achieved artistic success, usually within the genre of landscape, but the best known of this group is the artist we'll be discussing today, Thomas Moran (1837-1926).

Moran started out his artistic career apprenticing to Scattergood and Telfer, a wood engraving firm. During the 19th century, before photography had sufficiently evolved to become economically feasible, wood engraving was the most commonly used form of image reproduction. It provided the precision and detail of traditional metal engraving, but the use of wooden blocks made it a lot cheaper. Moran admittedly wasn't a fan of the process though, as engraving can be very time-consuming and repetitiv…

Today we'll be looking one of the 20th century's seminal etchers, Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988).

Originally from London, Hayter started out his career in the oil industry after earning his degrees in chemistry and geology. From 1922 to 1925, he worked for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Iran, until a bout with malaria forced him to return home. During this time of convalescence, he had a successful one-man show of his paintings and drawings, which may have inspired him to pursue a more artistic calling. Although he soon switched over to art, his chemical background would undoubtedly influence his later printmaking.

In 1926, Hayter went to study at the Academie Julian in Paris, and opened his own printmaking atelier, Atelier 17, in 1927. It was also during this time that he was introduced to Surrealism, particularly as interpreted by artists such as Yves Tanguy and Andre Masson. Their aesthetic would have a great impact on Hayter's own art. During the 1930s in parti…